The Philippine unit of Hong Kong-listed First Pacific Co. Ltd. may replicate an underwater highway in Florida state of United States to link its expressway in the north and south of Manila without passing through Roxas Boulevard in Manila.
“It’s just a thought on my part and I’ve been telling to our people that we should study the way to connect the Harbor area because that’s where our tollways pass through before it switches to the east towards PUP [Polythecnic University of the Philippines],” Metro Pacific Investments Corp. chairman Manuel Pangilinan said.
“Maybe we should connect it to Coastal so that people can travel north to south without having to enter the city unless they wanted to,” he said.
Pangilinan said the proposed underwater road or a bridge connecting the expressways was presented to the government “very informally.”
“I think we should have to do our feasibility study. There are two alternatives go underwater or go above the water. I think we can build it as a technical matter, but how much it would cost is another matter,” he said.
“In the States, particularly if you build an offshore road, there should have some distance from the shoreline. So, you doesn’t spoil the scenery. You’ve seen that in Florida and San Francisco.”
MPIC’s unit Manila North Tollways Corp. is building the P11.5-billion NLEx Harbor Link, a 5.6-kilometer elevated highway in northwest of Manila linking MacArthur Highway in Valenzuela City and C3 Road in Caloocan City near the port area. It also plans to spend an additional P5 billion to extend the NLEx Harbor Link up to R10 in the Port of Manila area.
The company is also building the P16.5-billion NLEx-SLEx Connector Road Project, an eight-kilometer, six-lane elevated expressway extending the NLEX southward from the end of Segment 10 in C3 Road Caloocan City to PUP Sta. Mesa and connect to the Common Alignment of Skyway Stage 3, and traversing mostly along the PNR rail track. The government has not yet approved the project, pending a Swiss Challenge.
MPIC operates the Manila–Cavite Expressway, a 14-km long access-controlled toll expressway linking Manila to Cavite.
MPIC’s MP CALA Holdings Inc. earlier won the Cavite-Laguna Expressway Project, a four-lane, 47-kilometer closed-system toll expressway connecting the Cavite Expressway and the Southern Luzon Expressway.
The project will start from the Cavitex in Kawit, Cavite and end at the SLEx-Mamplasan Interchange in Biñan, Laguna.
The project will have interchanges in nine locations, namely Kawit, Daang Hari, Governor’s Drive, Aguinaldo Highway, Silang, Sta. Rosa-Tagaytay, Laguna Boulevard, Technopark, and a toll barrier before SLEx.
Besides, NLEX and Cavitex, MPIC operates the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway.
MPIC’s tollway unit Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. is the largest toll road operator in the country.